For more than fifteen years, Pixar has represented the gold standard in computer generated films. Since the studio’s early days of making groundbreaking short films to producing Oscar-winning feature-length movies, Pixar has become a brand associated with quality animation and adorable characters. There have been some bumps along the road, from a love-hate-owner relationship with Disney to some questionable sequels, but few studios can boast such a consistent level of quality and innovation. This week, Pixar will be releasing its 13th full-length feature, Brave, with an entire new cast of characters different from any other Pixar film. This gives us a chance to look into Pixar’s past and remember some of the favorite characters from their films.

During all the festivities of CinemaCon in Las Vegas this week, the folks at Pixar announced several things. One being that their latest film Brave would help test Dolby’s Atmos format, a revolutionary new sound system that we reported on yesterday. The other — perhaps bigger — announcement is that they gave updates on three upcoming projects, all from original stories and all featuring Pixar veteran directors. Can’t wait to hear about Up co-director Bob Peterson’s dinosaur movie? How about Pete Docter’s trip inside the human mind? Or maybe you’re interested in Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich’s film about Dia De Los Muertos. It’s an interesting slate, about which we’ve compiled all the available details just after the jump.

It’s Academy Awards time again, and even though we all know the awards are basically an irrelevant exercise in mutual masturbation it’s still fun to watch. This year sees a wide variety of films gain entry into Oscar history via nominations for Best Screenplay, Original and Adapted. Some deserve the honor, while others are based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire.

There is something about the craft of great storytelling, the truly magical nature of a tale so perfectly executed that just grabs the heart strings of its audience and never lets go. It’s rare, but something we should be used to from Pixar.

Walt Disney Pictures has unleashed the full press kit for the upcoming Pixar film Up, which hits theaters on May 29th and will be making its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival tomorrow, May 13th. Inside said press kit they’ve included the final batch of images, 38 in total.

The new trailer for Pixar’s Up is online and it has our fearless leader all fired up and ready to start a fight with /Film’s Peter Sciretta. How could such an innocent animated film cause such mayhem? Find out inside.